India To Include Mauritius In The Visa-on-Arrival Scheme

Mauritius and India’s ties go a long way. Historically, politically, economically and socially, India familiarizes itself with this tiny speck on the Mascarene Islands. Like India Mauritius too has been eclectically connected to the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch and the English.

In her address to the reporters in Port Louis, Sushma Swaraj, the External Affairs Minister of India underlined that India’s spiritual partner in progress Mauritius would be included in the forthcoming list of countries to be awarded lifetime tourist visawith free access into India.

The bold initiative taken by India to merge, PIO (Persons of Indian Origin) and OCI (Overseas Citizens of India) schemes in September has been seen as an open welcome to all Indians in the word! With this Indian tourism industry has seen a surge of 120% growth this year alone! 180 countries till date have been included in the visa-on-arrival scheme barring 8, Afghanistan, Sudan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, for security reasons.

This year 40 countries including UAE, Saudi Arabia along with US, UK and other western and Asian countries like Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Phillipines have been included. Soon Mauritius could be one among them.

India hopes to rake in more than $121 billion or 6.4% of GDP through tourism in 2014 alone.